Carthusian Nuns

[MithLuin]

I've been to the Transfiguration Charterhouse in Vermont. Well, not to it, obviously, but up Mount Equinox Skyline Drive toll road, which you can then look down at the monastery from above. There's a little Catholic gift shop at the foot of the mountain with some great books in it. I think it's cool that the Carthusians don't sign their work, so all their stuff on prayer and what not is just published as "A Carthusian" It would probably be a lot cooler to write to them than to visit the vicinity, anyway.

Their postal address, e-mail address and fax number are listed on the website: http://transfiguration.chartreux.org/

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='EJames2' date='26 January 2010 - 08:56 PM' timestamp='1264553780' post='2045317']

La paix du Christ soit toujours avec vous.
[url="http://www.box.net/shared/t683qxmyxm"]http://www.box.net/shared/t683qxmyxm <<<< Carthusian Nuns Spain chant -Mp3[/url]
[/quote]

Beautiful! Would this be an excerpt from the nun's compact disc of Gregorian chant? Margaret Clare was going to tell us her opinion of the singing but I don't remember her posting about it.
Here is a link to a Madrid newspaper, El Pais, (obviously in Spanish) with a short article about the Spanish Carthusian nuns' compact disc, including a brief conversation with their mother prioress.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/Comunidad/Valenciana/Musica/celestial/elpepiautval/19981222elpval_15/Tes/

[sistersintigo]

Nathalie Nabert, historian and scholar, has published a book, Les Moniales Chartreuses, about the Carthusian nuns, within the past twelve months. The book is in French. All its photographs are in black and white, and the book itself is a work of art.
Madame Nabert consulted at length with the nuns and monks of the two communities of Carthusian women, in Nonenque and in Reillane, in France. Of course there are also two Italian groups of nuns, and the Spanish monastery, Benifaca, which is approaching its fiftieth year as a Carthusian charterhouse.
The individual vocations within these monasteries come from countries outside the monasteries as well. It is not unusual to find Carthusian nuns from Nigeria or from Belgium, who have made perpetual profession (if they are converse rather than choir nuns) to monasteries away from their native countries.
Madame Nabert's book addresses the additional option available to solemn professed choir nuns, perpetually professed converse nuns, and perpetual "donates": they may, if they choose, become consecrated virgins, who are permitted the deacon's privilege of proclaiming the Gospel during Mass. Mme Nabert is careful to emphasize that this is a most ancient convention of the early Christian church -- it is pre-Carthusian, going back to the rule of Saint Caesarius -- and it is in no way a form of ordination or priesthood. It has nothing to do, today, with the baptizing of women. Mme Nabert writes that Vatican II adapted the consecration somewhat. Before the Second Vatican Council, the consecration ceremony dressed the Carthusian nun with a tiara or crown; a crucifix; a maniple over one wrist; a stole over the shoulders (actually over the top of the entire Carthusian habit); and a ring. Today it is simpler, as the post Vatican II ceremony has done away with the crown, the crucifix, and the maniple. Today's consecrated-virgin Carthusian women receive the ring (apparently no ring at solemn profession) and the stole, in which they will be buried.

[brandelynmarie]

Would be an English translation of this book yet?

Edited March 20, 2010 by brandelynmarie

[sistersintigo]

Be careful what you wish for, brandi!
No, so far as I know, there is no English translation of Nathalie Nabert's newest book. In English, truthfully, there is a little bit written about the Carthusian monks; but virtually everything published about Carthusian moniales/nuns is in languages other than English. One exception would be the medieval Marguerite d'Oingt -- search for her at someplace like Amazon.com and you are likely to scare up an English presentation of her writings.
One caution is that Marguerite d'Oingt (sometimes called blessed, but honestly her only cultus was within the Carthusian order itself) has had her writings hijacked by the twentieth-century feminists. English translations of her writings are not only recent but also framed in the editors' fear and loathing of the patriarchy. Caveat emptor and all that. My opinion is that Marguerite herself, a prioress of a Carthusian monastery, probably had nothing of the sort on her mind when, in obedience to her director/confessor (a monk), she wrote her insights down for posterity.

[sistersintigo]

Marguerite d'Oingt was fairly well known in Europe by reputation, so much so that some images exist of her. I am so ignorant of computers that I cannot do as others here have done, and attach to this post a file containing her portrait. But her image is out there on the World Wide Web, holding a large book, indicating for all to see that this nun was literate and a writer. If I can find a link to her portrait, I will get the link to a post on this thread.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='sistersintigo' date='28 January 2010 - 02:40 PM' timestamp='1264700439' post='2046482']
"THERE IS NOT A HEART IN THIS WORLD SO COLD, THAT IT WOULD NOT BE SET ON FIRE WITH LOVE ..."

from the writing of Carthusian prioress and novice-mistress Marguerite d'Oingt, some two or three centuries into the nine hundred years of the history of Saint Bruno's order of Carthusian contemplatives.
Author/poet/contemplative Marguerite lived in the Provence region of France, in a monastery that no longer stands. One of the most exceptional things about Marguerite the Carthusian prioress is that she wrote things down. Her contemplative writings were actually copied and carried from her charterhouse of nuns to La Grand Chartreuse, the seat of the Carthusian Order (and restricted to monks and brothers!), for approval by the Minister General of the Order; a thing, I suspect, that did not often happen with vowed Carthusian religious women.

Last, but not least: mother Marguerite formed a Catholic saint, Blessed Beatrix of Ornacieux, one of Marguerite's novices.
[/quote]

And this is a painting of Blessed Beatrice d'Ornacieux:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Beatrice_d%27Ornacieux.jpg/200px-Beatrice_d%27Ornacieux.jpg

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='sistersintigo' date='22 March 2010 - 06:45 PM' timestamp='1269294349' post='2077940']
Marguerite d'Oingt was fairly well known in Europe by reputation, so much so that some images exist of her. I am so ignorant of computers that I cannot do as others here have done, and attach to this post a file containing her portrait. But her image is out there on the World Wide Web, holding a large book, indicating for all to see that this nun was literate and a writer. If I can find a link to her portrait, I will get the link to a post on this thread.
[/quote]
A portrait of Marguerite d'Oingt, medieval Carthusian prioress in France.

http://www.certosini.info/immaginicertosine/displayimage.php?pid=452&fullsize=1

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='sistersintigo' date='20 March 2010 - 05:33 PM' timestamp='1269117188' post='2076367']
virtually everything published about Carthusian moniales/nuns is in languages other than English. One exception would be the medieval Marguerite d'Oingt -- search for her at someplace like Amazon.com and you are likely to scare up an English presentation of her writings.
One caution is that Marguerite d'Oingt (sometimes called blessed, but honestly her only cultus was within the Carthusian order itself) has had her writings hijacked by the twentieth-century feminists. English translations of her writings are not only recent but also framed in the editors' fear and loathing of the patriarchy. Caveat emptor and all that. My opinion is that Marguerite herself, a prioress of a Carthusian monastery, probably had nothing of the sort on her mind when, in obedience to her director/confessor (a monk), she wrote her insights down for posterity.
[/quote]
This links to an eloquent English-language article about the Carthusian nun, Marguerite d'Oingt.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_32_118/ai_80680220/

[aalpha1989]

Oh, cool! I didn't even know there WERE Carthusian nuns.[img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/getaclue.gif[/img]

Of course I've never discerned with female orders and never with Carthusian males, either. but still. Carthusian life is so beautiful!

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='aalpha1989' date='16 April 2010 - 12:34 PM' timestamp='1271432080' post='2094685']
Oh, cool! I didn't even know there WERE Carthusian nuns.[img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/getaclue.gif[/img]

Of course I've never discerned with female orders and never with Carthusian males, either. but still. Carthusian life is so beautiful!
[/quote]

Carthusian nuns are mostly limited to Europe. A little foundation in South Korea, very new and not exactly growing in leaps and bounds.
There is a nun, Mother Mary Celestine Walls, who entered an Italian charterhouse for nuns. She is a native of Ireland. She wrote a Legion of Mary pamphlet called 'I Knew Edel Quinn' since they were friends when both were young. That was some time ago, so Mother Mary Celestine perhaps is no longer living.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1269099656' post='2076269']
Nathalie Nabert, historian and scholar, has published a book, Les Moniales Chartreuses, about the Carthusian nuns, within the past twelve months. The book is in French. All its photographs are in black and white, and the book itself is a work of art.
Madame Nabert consulted at length with the nuns and monks of the two communities of Carthusian women, in Nonenque and in Reillane, in France.
[/quote]
Carthusian nuns, and the consecration of virgins, have gone together for as long as the Carthusian order has admitted women, beginning with the French locale of Prebayon; this very old foundation no longer exists physically. Mme. Nabert devotes one of her book's chapters to "service of prayer, and virginal consecration" (part I, chapter 4, pp. 53 - 61). At the chapter's beginning, she notes: "the following remarks about historical research, were most kindly communicated to the author, by the Carthusian monk who is the Vicar of the Nonenque monastery of Carthusian Nuns." Here is my poor attempt to translate, into English, Mme. Nabert's one paragraph summarizing historical research covering over five centuries.

[quote]The Carthusian authors who, amongst other Church historians, have studied the ancient usage of virginal consecration, have arrived at the following conclusions. By no means is it implied that the minor order of Deacon would have been conferred upon nuns who were consecrated virgins; this consecration was common law and common usage at Prebayon, from which the Pontifical (book) has been conserved. The Prebayon pontifical testifies to the evolution from Ponticals of Romano-Germanic antiquity. From that time to this, the Carthusian nuns have faithfully preserved the consecration of virgins, almost the only ones still to do so in the Church.
[ As astute Phatmasser VS readers will be quick to observe, the Premonstratensian/Norbertine cloistered nuns also preserve same.]
An Opuscule from the French monastery of Bertaud, of Carthusian nuns, no doubt revised at some time close to 1200 A.D., is the oldest documentation that we possess, to witness to the usage of virginal consecration by Carthusian nuns. This document in fact contains the ritual of the consecration of virgins. In the first half of the 15th century A.D., at the Belgian monastery in Brugges of St Anne for Carthusian nuns, there appears the rite specially adapted for the Carthusian order. At the St Anne charterhouse, the nuns' vicar undertook to supplement their local Ordo, by inserting within same, a smaller Ordo, analogous to the "Ordines" of deaconesses, which originated in certain Italian monasteries. Until the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Pontifical had one of these "Ordines" inserted into it. These Italian "deaconesses" -- they were, in fact, the mother superiors of their monasteries -- were the last surviving vestiges, from very long ago, of the Deaconesses of ancient Christianity in the early church.[/quote]

It would be well to quote, at this point, the paragraph with which Nathalie Nabert concludes this same chapter of Les Moniales Chartreuses [The Carthusian Nuns].

[quote]Consideration is given, on occasion, to a comparison of virginal consecration with 'the ordination of the priesthood.' What the two things do have in common, is the visible sign given by the church to a relationship between God and humanity. But this comparison ought never to be pushed too far, since this is a matter of two very different orders of reality. Priestly ordination directly references Christ Jesus; virginal consecration, however, references His Bride. Rather than compare the two directly, it would be preferable to say that the two rites complement each other. Because the Virgin Mary received Christ within her very person, it became possible for Christ to incarnate and, in the act, to become Priest. The same at Calvary: Christ had it within His Power to exercise His Priesthood, in the name of all humanity, because of the complete receptivity and surrender of the Virgin Mother in order to receive within herself the participation in the Passion offered to her by her Son. Jesus, Priest for all eternity, brought about the Paschal mystery of Easter; but one of the essential dimensions thereof, is that Christ found an immediate and perfect welcome within the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Virgin who received from On High, this gift.[/quote]

(Whew.) Hey, Ortus! Can you translate this French better than I? If so, have at it, in the best of health.

Edited August 26, 2010 by sistersintigo

[abrideofChrist]

[quote]From that time to this, the Carthusian nuns have faithfully preserved the consecration of virgins, almost the only ones still to do so in the Church.
[ As astute Phatmasser VS readers will be quick to observe, the Premonstratensian/Norbertine cloistered nuns also preserve same.][/quote]

Could you support this statement? I find it extremely surprising that the Norbertine cloistered sisters would have preserved the consecration of virgins for two reasons. First, the consecration requires conferral by the local bishop (not an abbot). To my knowledge, the bishop of Fresno (the only one besides the Pope who could approve of their consecration) has never conferred the consecration upon them. Second, since their superior is ineligible as she is a grandmother (therefore not a virgin), I would guess it unlikely that she would permit the virgin members of the community to receive the consecration. This consecration is considered the crowning glory of religious but not all are able to receive it.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='abrideofChrist' timestamp='1282871722' post='2163815']
Could you support this statement? I find it extremely surprising that the Norbertine cloistered sisters would have preserved the consecration of virgins. This consecration is considered the crowning glory of religious but not all are able to receive it.
[/quote]

[url="http://musicasacra.com/publications/sacredmusic/pdf/sm125-2.pdf"]scroll to page 16[/url]

I messed up, btw. I had virginal consecration confused with "donate" nuns. My apologies.

Edited August 27, 2010 by sistersintigo

[ortus]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1282858436' post='2163675']

(Whew.) Hey, Ortus! Can you translate this French better than I? If so, have at it, in the best of health.

[/quote]

I am sorry but I have only just seen your message. I have read through the original and I think your translation is absolutely fine. Unfortunately, I am a little snowed under with work at the moment and so I do not have the time to devote to doing a translation. In any case, I am not sure that it would be that much better than your own.

There is a wonderful resource on Carthusian matters and I wonder if you if you have come across it. The Yahoo Group for the International Fellowship of St Bruno: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IFSB/. It has members with all sorts of interests in the Order – some are academics with expert knowledge in the Order’s history or liturgical tradition; many people have just a general interest in finding about their unique monastic lifestyle but the majority are simply attracted by Carthusian spirituality. It has been running for over 10 years and so the message archives are a mine of information.

You may well find that members have got translations of documents that are hard to find anywhere else and I have found it very useful for all sorts of things. For example, a few years ago, I was doing some research on Denis the Carthusian and one of the group members put me in touch with an old Flemish priest who had spent his retirement researching the Lowland Charterhouses. I even called in to see him when I was in Belgium and had the privilege of a guided tour of his library. A wonderful experience!

Best regards.



Ps) I am not sure if the Premonstratensian Canonesses still have the Rite of Virginal Consecration but they certainly did in fairly recent history. I made a retreat with the Premonstratensian Priory in Storrington and on a rainy afternoon spent my time rooting through their library. They had some pictures of a young nun form one on the Polish Abbeys on the day of her virginal consecration. She was not only dressed in a Stole but a Maniple as well. I guess the photographs were from the 1950’s. I got the impression from the Prior that it was something that the nuns still did but I may well have misunderstood him.